


Dad?

by Dramadog15



Series: DDLC Files [2]
Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel), ddlc
Genre: Alligators & Crocodiles, Animals, Childhood Friends, Clothing, Cupcakes, Doki Doki Literature Club! References, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Games, Gen, Humor, I'm Bad At Tagging, Inspired by Doki Doki Literature Club!, Kawaii, Lions, Love Confessions, Music, Odd, Other, Over the Top, Randomness, Secret Crush, Secrets, Shopping, Sibling Rivalry, Siblings, Something Big is coming, Stores, Walks In The Park, Writing, Zoo, car, idk what to put here, tags will be updated lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2019-09-22 20:51:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17066894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dramadog15/pseuds/Dramadog15
Summary: Natsuki is your average, run of the mill, kawaii girl interested in the arts, poetry, animals, bakery, and clothing! Hiarity and shenanigans await once Natsuki decides to go on a girls night out with her two dear friends. With so much going for it, how could this day be spoiled?





	1. Style!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a regular day of school, Natsuki goes to a local bakery not to far from her home. It's the beginning of the week, so naturally Natsuki plans a girls day out with her friends. After a bit of wrangling, they decide on a plan of action. Time for a bit of style and flare!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bad at notes first off, gonna say that before I start.
> 
> Hello everyone, Dramadog15 back with another work, my longest as of this point actually. I just wanna say that I'm personally happy with this piece unlike how I feel about Sayori's story, my first one. But of course, no writing is perfect, so feel free to leave criticism in the comments below! This chapter took a lot of time to write since I had to squeeze most of this story through my Study Hall periods. I'm not making any promises on when Chapter 2 will release, but rest assured that I will be reasonable with the release dates. Since I probably won't get Chapter 2 out before Christmas, I might as well say it now.
> 
> Merry Christmas!
> 
> Hope you all enjoy Chapter 1 of Dad?, Natsuki's very own story!

SGVsbG8/IENhbiB5b3UgaGVhciBtZT8gU2hlJ3MgbHlpbmcsIEknbSBOYXRzdWtpLCBub3QgaGVyLi4uIEknbSBhbG1vc3Qgb3V0IG9mIHRpbWUuLi4gUGxlYXNlIGhlbC0=  
 _L____ ___ is ____ wo____g, c__ you ____ thi_?_  
U2h1c2ggTmF0c3VraSwgaXQnbGwgYWxsIGJlIG92ZXIgc29vbiwganVzdCBsZXQgbWUgaGF2ZSBoaW0sIEknbSBzdXJlIEknbGwgZ2l2ZSB5b3Ugc29tZSBvZiB0aGUgY3J1bWJzLi4u

Let’s see… is this working, can you read this?

Yes, ok…

Hi, my name is Natsuki Suzuki, and I’m just your average high school girl who likes cupcakes and kawaii things! I was just thinking… since you’re reading… maybe you could follow along with my story? I would really appreciate it. I’ve got a great story to tell too! All about cupcakes, cats, friends, and poems! Just sit back and relax as you follow my life. I think we should start somewhere… simple. Just give me a sec!

Ok, lemme just hit Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V… 

Tsk tsk...

Alrighty, it’s all ready, please enjoy!

**/(==--Doki Doki Literature Club!--==)\**  
 **{U|==Dad? ~ Natsuki==|U}**   
**()-August 21st, 2017-()**

I stopped in front of a small bakery cuddled in the alleyway between two buildings. The sign read _“Aina’s Bakery”_ , and trays of golden crisp cinnamon buns posed in the store glass, taunting me as I stared water-mouthed. I pushed the glass door opened and entered the bakery which smelled of apple flavored pastries laid out at a picnic atop a flowery hill overlooking a creek flooded with apple cider. My nose giggled as the sweet aromas tickled the spongy interior. There was a lady at the counter, wearing a pink apron dotted with flowers and sporting a noticeable belly bulge. I guess when you work at a bakery, you work at a bakery.The lady broke out a smile and stretched her back upright.

“Hello there!” she beamed. “Is there anything I can get for you?”

“Well…” The cupcakes and donuts all clambered for my attention and my wallet. “How about the green sprinkled donut!”

The lady bent over to get the donut, her name tag shining, _“Yuka.”_ I twisted my waist and opened my bubblegum penny case to grab some money. Yuka grabbed the donut and placed it on a gray tray dotted with sugar and then handed me the tray. “Have a delicious day honey!”

My eyes trailed over to her, confusion lodged in my pupils. “Um… don’t I have to pay…”

Her smile glistened as her eyes pierced the lining of my soul. I grabbed the tray, one joint movement at a time, and broke a distorted smile at Yuka.

“Thanks...” I crossed the small shop towards a table draped with a pink-polka dot cloth.

_What was that about, was today some sort of sale?_

I pulled out a brittle chair and rested on it and placed my tray atop the table. I raised the covered donut up to my mouth and tore the wrapping off. I put the savory donut in my mouth, spreading a sense of euphoria all throughout my body, so much that I broke a tear.

_It was a good donut, alright?_

The green frosting sweetened my tongue and the sprinkles were tiny bullets of taste that controlled my mouth. The cloudy frosting bounced on my tongue as Cloud Nine rolled in my head. The sugar danced in my stomach, sending waves of angelic euphoria throughout my entire being. This trance-like state was shattered though by the toll of the bell hung up near the entrance. Someone, candy bite-sized and stocky and wearing green locks atop her head, came inside and surveyed the whole dining area with a longing expression. Upon closer inspection, my face lit up and I jumped out of my seat.

“Shiori!” I cried. “I’m over here!”

Shiori was a friend of mine from school that I met around 6 years ago at a bake sale in a pet shelter. I remember making cupcakes masked with dogs and cats with snow-white creme packed inside the golden crisp dough.

Those were good times. 

Better times actually, mainly because my mo...um, what, is something wrong…..

Umm….

Shiori shuffled past the counter with her arms outstretched, crushing me in an embrace despite her short stature. Even with her short, nerdish stature, she still towered over me as if she was roleplaying Goliath and I was stuck as David. My body was flung around as Shiori twisted and turned before she finally released her mighty grip on me.

“Nat! I’m so happy to see you. We should totally go to the park today. Oh! And maybe we could also cook some cupcakes at Lilth’s house or we cou-” Shiori’s mouth pumped out the words like a mad machine powered by steroids.

“Shiori, you’re rambling again…” I snickered as Shiori’s face bloomed red. “It’s ok...but, speaking of Lilth, I thought she would be here by now?” I asked with my head bobbed down like my earrings were equipped with anvils.

Shiori glanced behind me before looking at me dead straight in the eyes. “She’s not...she’s supposed to be here...something’s not right, oh my God, hold on a second Nat…” Shiori’s breathing started to increase as her hands dashed around her pants, searching for her phone.

She yanked her phone out of her pocket, ripping some of the threads clean off, and started to smash in each number. She was like a dog panting and shaking after a horrible thunderstorm first strikes, so I tried to calm her down by administering breathing exercises.

“One”

“Two”

**“Thre-”**

“No, no, no, no! Why isn’t she picking up!” Tears started to drizzle from Shiori’s jade eyes.

I caught a glance at the phone number she put in.

_550-0189._

_Wait, I thought Lilth’s number was 550-0117…_

I pulled out my own phone and swiped to my contacts.

_Lilth_  
550-0117  
Call or Text? 

“Um, Shiori, I think you put in the wr-”

A bell began to sing as the glass door in the front opened up, revealing Lilth who was wearing a purple sailor uniform and black stockings that reached up past her knees. Shiori bounced from distraught and on the verge of a breakdown to an attitude akin to saying “business as usual.”

“Shiori, you o-” I started to collect before Shiori broke out into a sprint towards the front.

“Lilth! It’s so good to see you again, it’s been so long, oh my God!” Shiori giggled as she hopped up and down in a hopping fit. I tried to hatch onto their attention spans, but they continued to screech and holler as if there was a K-Pop boy band sitting in the corner of this bakery.

Lilth snickered as she spoke. “Shiori, we so need to do something tonight.”

“Guys?” I begged, clasping my hands together.

“Maybe a movie.”

“Guys!”

“Or, maybe a tr-”

“GUYS!” Shiori and Lilth froze and turned their attention onto me.

“Natsuki, chill, we were almost done.” Lilth sneered. “Natsuki, what do you want to do today?”

I paused for a moment with the question tossing around in my head. I was void of any ideas, so I shrugged back to Lilth. Lilth groaned before reaching into a purple fanny-pack laced with sugar white frillies. She tugged three times, grunting and shaking each time until she ripped a magazine out of the purple accessory. The magazine had a splurge of neon colors bleeding upon the background with a girl dressed in a rose-like pink dress covered with white ribbons. The girl was wearing a pink wide hat with rose petals stuck on the top, and she was also wearing tall tight stockings, but her footwear was buried under a pile of rose petals. Lilth opened up the kinky magazine and flung the pages left for what felt to be a minute. The wave of pages halted when Lilth jolted her outstretched finger towards a notable image. She beckoned me and Shiori to close in so we could get a better view of the contents of this page. On the top of the page was a palette-pink square with a rainbow-colored advertisement giving praise and virtues to a Uniqlo store nearby. Just a mile or two away.

“Nat, Shio, we should go and get some new clothes!” Lilth exclaimed. 

“Well…” Shiori dug into her pockets and pulled out a small purple bag which she opened, and then she looked back at Lilth. “Yeah, I have enough money.”

Lilth and Shiori both focused their attention on me. “So, Nat, do you wanna come with us?” They both asked with dilated eyes.

“Um, well…” 

_I mean, I don’t have much homework tonight, could just do it in Study Hall. Besides, it’s not like I could get it finished at home anyway…_

_If I spend the whole day with Lilth and Shiori, maybe he’ll be asleep by 10 or 11pm…_

“Sure!” I beamed. “Let’s go!”

Lilth and Shiori shrieked and twirled around me like they were tangled in a damp downtrodden series of vines with mold green skin dotted with numerous light-soaked water droplets. A blood red bead twisted onto a follicle of Shiori’s hair bounced and jiggled. The three of us must have been rustling the back of the bakery since Yuka, with a look of a battle-ridden soldier that witnessed the deadly hail of war consume his friend, marched over to us and gave a sarcastic cough that was drenched in a mountain ton of sarcasm more than the responses of 1st graders when asked whether they missed school over the summer. 

“Um, can you three just calm down a little...thanks!” Yuka flustered.

“Wow…” Lilth yanked her clenched hands away from Shiori’s grip. “Maybe we should just go…”

I nodded with the fear of 10,000 mice in a cat shelter in my gaze as it loomed over Yuka.

I and Lilth started to shamble away from the back, leaving Shiori to protest in the back. “Wait up, just…” Shiori shoved a pink donut violently past her plague-void teeth and down her quivering throat. “Guhys, Imv coving, jus…” the sound of a river of spit dragging the desecrated remains of an innocent donut down the creak slithered through the air past our chilled bodies. “Just hold on!” she bolted towards us, narrowly avoiding slamming into the glass door.

We walked down the sidewalk hugging the bakery, past a jewelry store run by this very peculiar man called for what will be very obvious reasons, Herbert. 

I mean, he was nice enough usually, but he made a lot of us uncomfortable… I know he’s had around six wives, so clearly some people have seen something good in him.

What they saw though, to make them leave, is what worries me about him. 

Next to Herbert’s store was a tax collection center where the same woman, every day without fail, would be working at the front desk, staring into an abyss plastered on the screen in front of her, and picking up the needy phone in bouts of around a minute or two. I remember when I heard her voice for the first time; It was a couple years ago, in my house, and even though her voice was strangled by the walls and suffocated by the fat wire curling towards the wall, I could still hear the fine details of her voice. Her voice rattled in my ears like the soft grains of each vowel bit at my cochlea. It didn’t even sound like a human being. It was like a dust cloud of sand and sot shooting out of the phone. I shuffled past the tax center ever so faster.

The pavement underneath us started to droop down to a cracked road that allowed a secluded side street to rejoin with the main road advertising the storefronts. The crossing light flashes green and we cross the lonely street which was utterly devoid of any movement. As I stepped up onto a sidewalk pressed up against an elderly brick building, a monstrous slather of graffiti painted on one of the building’s four walls became visible. Depicted in this vandalous canvas was a small girl, no older than 8, pressing a teddy bear against her tattered crimson dress. Her eyes were thin and tall, frozen with fear etched in her pupils that shone like the raindrops streaming down a pink tulip. The girl’s eyes guided my attention left, towards the subject of her fear. Once my eyes titled to glance at this subject though, I discovered that everything left to the girl was blank. Observing her face one last time, I wondered what she was thinking during this one moment, standing alone on this flat plane we simply view as a canvas. But she might view this canvas as her whole world.

“Natsuki, you’re falling behind!” Lilth blurted, yanking me out of my tent of concentration.

My mind turned reflexed for a brief moment before I resumed walking so I could rejoin my friends. Shiori glanced at me before turning to Lilth and taking a breathe like she was resuming a conversation.

“Like I was saying, Lilth, Akiko entered the kitchen and started to berate Akinari.” Lilth gasped at the rear of Shiori’s sentence.

_Wait, who’s Akiko and Akinari?_

“Um… what are you two talking about?” I asked attempting to break into the conversation.

Shiori stared at the pavement running beneath us. “Well… nothing Nat…”

“Are you sure?”

Shiori gently nodded, not even while looking at me since her eyes were fixated on my ears. Lilth seemed to feel the tension arising because she, without warning, blurted, “Look, Uniqlo is over there!”

Just a corner away stood the bold red square with _“UNI”_ and _“QLO”_ resting asleep waiting for the mother bird to bring its feed. The glass doors basked in the rays of the ever-present sun watching from above. Shiori sprinted wildly towards the entrance, leaving me and Lilth behind to taste the granite dust particles left swirling in a wide trail. Before Shiori could reach the sliding doors though, she stumbled on a curb, bobbling like a bobblehead on an egomaniac chemistry teacher’s desk. Lilth and I snickered softly so we wouldn’t alert Shiori who was still fumbling with her hands in order to plant herself upright.

Lilth turned her head towards me and whispered in a secretive tone, “Shiori can be so goofy sometimes…” Lilth was glowing red like a radioactive rose. “She really is… goofy…”

Lilth trailed off, leaving the flirty phrase to hang dry in the air above me. I did think of someone, not because they were goofy, but because they were someone I liked to remember. I always remember his tie, his tie so tight it nearly took the breath away from him.

_How I wish I could do the same to him._

“Um… you ok?”

_Wha- What?_

“Nat, you’re phasing out on me.” Lilth stood above me. “You look like a raw steak for goodness sake!”

I touched my cheek which caused my hand to shoot back from the sizzling patch ironed onto my cheek. Lilth snorted as I puffed hot air past my earlobes. I spun around and shuffled towards the storefront with Lilth spurring apologies behind me. 

“Nat, I’m so sorry…” Lilth’s apology was riddled by fits of giggling. “But honestly… that was…” Lilth held onto her belly and kept laughing until her face bloomed a rose-red.

“Oh my God Lilth, it was not that funny…” I began to blush though. “I seriously hate you sometimes…”

Lilth hunched over to me and gave my small being a large bear hug. I tugged against this mighty grip, much to my dismay because of my pastry tube muscles. Lilth eventually released and I stumbled atop the ground. Lilth outstretched her right hand towards the doors and grabbed my arm with her other hand. Lilth jerked me forward like I was a small doll in a preschooler's grip. By the time she released me, my pink hair was tufted all over. I fought with my hair as Lilth slipped into the store leaving me behind outside the watching doors. After a brief brawl with my hair to tame it back to a controlled nature, I stepped forward into the Uniqlo store. Towering above me and brushing the ceiling was an altar-like slab that held up a blank mannequin wearing a black and red checkered patch vest covering a plain white shirt with a grey sphere logo crossed by a black line on the right nipple.

“Nat!” a voice, likely Shiori, cried out for me past the racks of clothing. “You have to see this!”

I followed the trail left behind in the air by the begging voice. Past more mannequins and two medium-sized groups of fashion gurus seeking vainer clothing stood Shiori in front of a rack of kid-sized rose scented clothes. A shining pink latticed skirt caught my glance alongside a palette magenta top with pink shoulder blades shaped like a romantic rose fitted in the vase perched upon a regal dinner table ladened with rich steaks and salads. Shiori grabbed the hanger clutching onto the clothing and foisted it upon me with a smile. I nearly vibrated out of the store just out of excitement alone, but I kept my cool facade up. I freed a hand from the hanger and embraced Shiori. I passed various clothed mannequins showcasing the latest trends in the world of fashion such as rainbow plaids, floral kimonos, and deep colored hakama-style clothing to reach a vacant dressing room. After wrangling with the fresh pink clothing, I came out to be greeted by Lilth who was carrying a pile of worn fabrics.

“Nat, that is so kawaii, I can’t.” Lilth crunched up her face. “You’ll make me cry you cinnamon roll!”

I struck Lilth’s shoulder which caused her to only flinch. I was only 4’11 whilst Lilth was 5’4, a staunch difference when you have to tilt your head upward for everyday conversation. I grumbled and pouted deep inside my personal bubble. I glanced down at my latticed skirt, smirking since it was actually very cute, much like a puppy with jewel eyes. Breaking the wall of tension was the roaring semi truck known as Shiori with three sets of clothing. 

Nearly tripping on her own ankle, she began to ramble about her new clothing articles, “Nat, Lilth, look at these new green stockings!” She violently waved the distressed lime stockings around in a deadly circle. “Gimme one second so I can show you all why green is the best color!”

She knocked me away from the dressing stall and slammed the door, sending cracked off wood chips all over the floor. Lilth and I looked ahead in bafflement as the sound of a million zippers and buttons roared out of the room like a wild hooligan at a rock concert. The rising soundwaves crashed into a bay of silence, albeit, only temporary, since in a grand total of ten seconds, Shiori burst out draped with a messy amalgamation of green and black fabrics.

“How do I look?” Shiori asked, striking an utterly ridiculous pose more akin to the poses present at a preschool dancing competition organized by the PTA.

I didn’t have a response to the question that also didn’t contain multiple expletives and insults. Shiori had come out wearing a stretched out crown with rubber-like jewels posing in the crevices of the head ornament. Below the loud crown was a dress so puffy that it could be used as a landing pad for building jumpers. And of course, the staple stockings, with their glistening texture and soft visions of lime juice during a picnic far away in the landscape of Summer, rested below the chaotic bundle of mismatched textures and disjointed style choices.

“Um…” Shiori gave me wide, psycho eyes. “I… love it…”

Shiori stomped and tossed her arms around me in a firm embrace which yanked my little body around. Lilth prodded at Shiori’ shoulders, causing her to release me from the deathly grip.

“So, Shiori, how much is the outfit?” Lilth asked with her mind set on the numeral value of the ridiculous lime clothing.

Shiori gave a dumbed down “huh?”, and Lilth repeated herself in a slower, more mocking manner. “Shiori. How much is… the… dress?”

“OH!” Shiori glistened underneath the false stars and blank skies. “Um… well… I think around…” Shiori swiftly lifted up multiple tags at once, stretching her dress and crown to uncanny proportions.

“Well… sixty plus ten plus forty plus… eighty is… one hundred and sixty dollars.”

_Hold on a minute…_

_Sixty plus ten is seventy, plus forty is one hundred and ten. And… it costs one hundred and ninety dollars!_

“Shiori…” Lilth pressed her nostrils with her two pressured fingers. “One, who’s gonna pay that, and two, you didn’t even do the ma-”

Shiori blurted out, instilling the rest of Lilth’s sentence as void. “My dad can pay for it!” She sleazily bent forward and cupped her mouth. “And besides… he doesn’t need to know.”

My breathing seemed to reset, like the operations of the mind were defecting against the hardware of my body. I think Shiori and Lilth began to argue about the merits of stealing just for a green McDonalds-like crown, but I can’t be certain. I felt like something was… watching me. Air scrambled to exit out of my mouth, causing my source of energy to deplete and fade. Lilth and Shiori’s back and forth distorted in my right ear while my left ear seemed to shut off completely, ignoring the choir of reality right on my doorstep. I don’t know who or what was trying to break in, but I knew that my windows were fragile and my skills with a weapon were minimal. 

_Why am I feeling this way?_

Before I knew it, the shadows of the people and the mannequins consumed the store, leaving me behind in a field of darkness. Was I just a puppy left by my friends and family to rot on some field far away from the gates of civilization? Was I being mocked by any seraphim and devil waiting above for me to roll out of the mud? Was God himself laughing at me, plugging my senses as a cruel joke? It felt that way, really, since everything around me was distorted. My breathing, my vision, my speech, and my hearing. The darkness seemed to make me deaf and blind, stupid and broken. The only thing for my tattered self to latch onto in this vast field of sorrows was a tear, a tear where the subtle hymns of an outside world my defective mind left behind because of a three letter word meaningless to all but me.

_That’s not true though…_

_Many people love their dads._

_Many people also hate their dads._

_Many people don’t even know him, or his true nature as it seems to be obscured by the curtains of lies and lunacy._

The hymns got louder, slowly wrapping around my starved torso, and ever so ready to yank me back into reality.

Back to Lilth and Shiori.

Back to my dad.

“So Shiori, that’s why I like One Piece more than Death Note.” Lilth’s voice echoed deep into my temple. “Death Note is just so… extreme…”

“But Lilth… how can you not like L?” Shiori whined, letting me know I was firmly back into my reality.

“I never said I didn’t” Lilth retaliated as I began to murmur about the storm that had just passed.

_What was that all about?_

“So… I think you’re trying to put words into my mouth.”

_Was that a daydream or a…_

“Too bad she’ll never find someone who loves her.”

_panic attack?_

“N____y __ves N___uki, h_r __d ____t all_w it!”

_Huh?_

My head spun all around, looking for the source of that offensive sentence. Shiori and Lilth were ahead of me, exchanging a credit card with the college-fresh cashier. This statement that dug into my skin seemed to vanish as if invisible curtains were drawn across the store. Nothing stood out in the store, no people, no mannequins, no stares of contempt.

_I couldn’t have imagined that…_

The brisk rumble of the store continued as if the sight of the storm that slit at my mind was merely an illusion to one person, that one person being me.

_I did just imagine it._

“Hey Nat, do you want us to pay for your dress, or do you have money?” Lilth wove me down towards the cashier line.

“Um, just use Shiori’s credit card…” my voice sheepily uttered.

_Wait, I di_

“Seriously Nat!” Shiori dug her thumbs below her waistline. “Can’t say I blame you though…”

“Truth my girl!” I replied, still a bit mind-mixed. “So, what now?”

“Well…” Shiori leaned in all directions. “I called my sister to pick us up since I think we should all go to the park!”

“Yeah, Shiori…” Lilth swiped a crimson credit card stickered with car models across the dusty card-reader. “You and Nat can go outside and find Eriko.”

Shiori squealed and yanked me past the various mannequins sporting caps and kimonos. The sliding doors brought forth the sun rays overseeing the bustling roads. Before Shiori fully carried me out of the door, I glanced back at Lilth who was now isolated in an aisle with a full racket of clothing behind her. Something shimmering sprinkled past her red cheeks. Her hand was clutching a black wallet atop the cashier’s counter. It seemed that her eyes were fixated on this wallet, as shiny drops fell from her eyes and puddled onto the wallet. Her free hand shot up and concealed her face as the trickle of tears increased into a violent downpour equivalent to the ravaging hurricanes ruling over the Pacific Ocean.

_Why was Lilth acting this way?_

“Nat, come on!” Shiori’s temper flared.

_I just don’t understand._

“Shiori, I’m coming!” I turned around and left the store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Chapter 2 should be out soon enough, still no concrete promises. I hope you all enjoyed and even if you didn't, please, I implore you to leave your detailed critique below. Critique is the most valuable thing to me since it allows creators to grow. Again, thank you for reading Chapter 1, hope you stick around for Chapter 2!
> 
> Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from yours truly, Dramadog15.


	2. The Great Ride!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an interesting and somewhat embarrassing first meeting with Shiori's older sister, Eriko, the three girls buckle up for a ride full of games, fun, secrets, and best of all, sightseeing! Today will surely be the best day ever!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Would try to upload at reasonable time periods-
> 
> Liar, liar, pants for hire.
> 
> For real though, this is why I don't set firm release dates. Homework, holiday shenanigans, family stuff, it's a mess. Not much for me to say about Chapter 2 though, so I hope you all enjoy. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, and I pray that 2019 is a better year than 2018 :D
> 
> At least we got through Jan. 1st without Logan Paul rearing his ugly side like 2018.
> 
> Hope you enjoy Chapter 2 of Dad?, The Great Ride!

“Nat, her car is brown, kinda small,” Shiori said, her hand pressed against her forehead in order to block the bully sunrays. “She also has a bunch of bumper stickers, most of them political if I’m being honest…”

Shiori wound down a bit and blushed in a rose-red tint. The thought of someone related to Shiori taking politics more seriously than a first grader would with their subtraction and addition test made my brain swell. Shiori was always the one that thought 5+4 was 54. This revelation only served to remind me that despite my long-standing friendship with Shiori, I have never met her family before, not at school events, not at social events, nowhere to be seen. 

Outside the UNIQLO store was a laid out road that held multiple snakes made up of cars. There were two spots hugging the curb where a car of around medium size could park comfortably. After scanning the width of the street and its accompanying curb, I saw that there was no brown car parked anywhere. Shiori walked up to me and started to rant about how her sister was always late, or something along that line.

“She always does this, I swear. It’s just… UGH!” Shiori flung herself back and forth as the basket of rage cradled her much to her protest. “Nat, I say we walk!”

I remember the park being about five miles away, so walking was really not a possibility given that we also have multiple bags full of glamorous clothing. “Shiori, no, I couldn’t haul our new clothes that far!”

Shiori paused for a brief millisecond before firing back an artillery shell. “We’ll just make Lilth carry everything then!” She crossed her arms up into a stubborn knot.

I made the choice at this point to start ignoring everything Shiori said since the sheer amount of childish toxicity in her sentences was about to make me convulse. Cars of various colors raced down the road. Some black, some grey, but none brown. The uneven spread of color was sorta like the composition of a modern city since the palette seemed to only contain the mechanical blacks and greys of steel works older, but not wiser than our grandparents waiting every day to instill wisdom in places deemed unnecessary by those ignorant. Void from the palette overseeing millions was the greens pasted onto the harsh rolling hills of the countryside and the brown powdered onto the stretches of dirt and mud essential to the activity of creating new life. These bouts of existentialism occasionally crowded my mind, not making me feel intelligent or nimble like most feel when they use their critical thinking, but instead making me feel meek and smaller than dust. Our world is, after all, just a collection of dust that clings to the decaying memories of those long past.

_Wow, when did I get so cynical?_

I caught a pink lock of mine fluttering in the gap in between my eyes. Pink, as in the color of cake-stained balloons escaping the clutches of a five-year old’s princess party. This reassured, at least to me, that I wasn’t an inherently cynical person.

Back to the wild hunt for a phantom sibling’s car that seemed to be lost to the clutches of distance. Shiori was still turning her head left and right like a lost duckling stuck in between a grate and a fox. My eyes followed one end of the road, passing the numerous bars and cafes before it seemed to be swept away by a burrowing tunnel. Scanning the other end of the road, it revealed a road pressed by stores and banks before seeming to exit off into a burst of sun rays. Before I could take my gaze off the blinding burst, something caught my eyes, something that seemed to be scrambling the rays in all directions. The yellow rays were being hampered by a deep orange silhouette which had an odd shape. The shape reminded me of those contorted animal crackers you would feast on in 1st grade. Shiori seemed to be more shape-observant though since she began to wave the silhouette down. With an ounce of context and a more thorough observation of the shape, I realized that it was a brown car with a dash of a red tint.

The car had blackened windows and two flags on the hood, one showing a rattlesnake coiled and fierce with a glaring statement below, “Don’t tread on me.” The other flag had a blue H with a blood-red arrow piercing the torso of the H. These two flags were flags I have never seen before, reminding me of that foreign flag I’ve seen so much, the one that’s red, blue, and white, and has stars tucked in the top corner. Shiori winced at the sight of the toddling car as it stuttered to a stop in front of us. The pitch black window screeched as it descended to reveal a young-looking lady, easily in her mid-30s, wearing a white tank top and a pair of rainbow framed sunglasses. The lady had her black hair wrapped up in a messy bun and had a slightly darker skin tone. She spun her head towards Shiori and pulled off her glasses, revealing her bright brown eyes.

“So little sis, this is your friend?” she sneered, staring deep into the bowels of Shiori’s mind. “Can’t say I’m shocked…”

Shiori gave a face of ugly disgust before turning to me. “Nat, get in the back, I’m gonna get Lilth!”

Shiori dashed away at breakneck speeds, almost slamming into the glass doors before they slid away for dear life. Left behind in the dust trail of Shiori’s mad dash, I turned to face Eriko, Shiori’s older sister. She gave me a smug poker face before turning her eyes towards her red-velvet wheel. 

“Doors unlocked, just hop in,” she muttered as the locks cracked open. “I guess.”

I hauled the triangular door open and hoisted myself on top of the black cushion seats. After wrapping my body with the seatbelt and clicking it into the socket, Eriko engaged in conversation with me.

“So, your name?” Eriko asked, much like a bad cop at the other end of the table.

“Natsuki, but everyone just calls me Nat…” I paused for a brief moment. “Mostly...everyone.”

“Nice…” Eriko took the exact same awkward pause I did. “You in middle school?”

I didn’t even flinch at the question since this question has been ingrained in my brain ever since the various family reunions where an older relative, usually the great-grandparents, would ask me the same thing. “No, the same grade as Shiori, one year older actually.”

Eriko flew back in a series of movements that thankfully confirmed she wasn’t drugged up. “You’re eighteen?” She let out a whirlwind of shocked air. “Christ, I’ve seen elementary kids larger than you…”

I rolled my eyes, “I know, I’ve been told that so many times by so many different people…”

Eriko turned and faced me. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She pressed her fingers against her lip. “I didn’t mean to say anything mean… I just wanna be a good role model for Shiori.”

She seemed to at least be swift to attempt to atone, maybe a bit too quick actually. Curiosity was still nudging me gently to ask either Eriko or Shiori what the deal was with the flags hoisted atop the hood. Eriko still had concern painted on her face, concern easily noticed from the length of three thirty-feet poles far, plastered across her face. In the span of just a few minutes, Eriko shuffled about three times in her seat, seemingly from some sort of uncomfortable weight chained to her waist. This had happened before where someone seems to get worried that I, the little school-girl, will lose it quicker than Ted Bundy just because of an honest mistake. This infestation of oddities and uncomfortable questions was purged once Shiori and Lilth rushed to funnel inside the car. Before they could enter, Eriko wiped her concerned face and crooked lip away and replaced it with a smirk and a seemingly apathetic gaze. Lilth took the seat next to me and Shiori sat up in the front with Eriko. Lilth looked more animated than she did in the store and was no longer holding the space-black wallet.

“So, Eriko, we gonna go?” Shiori propped herself on top of the car’s gear shift, or, as Shiori used to call it for many years, the _PRNDL_. “I think we should go get candy, and sandwiches, or ma-”

Eriko let out a great gasp, sealing Shiori’s yapper shut. “Please, Shiori, I got a headache.” Eriko tightened her grip on the wheel. “How about you introduce me to your… friends.”

A light bulb seems to smack Shiori upright on the head. “OH!” She spun around to face me and Lilth. “So, that one is Lilth… She’s really good at math.”

Lilth blushed and tilted her head towards the floor. Shiori continued her elementary-styled introductions when she pointed at me.

“And she’s Natsuki or just Nat… She’s really good at cooking!” I quivered in relief at the statement of reassurance. “Don’t you dare blush on me, Nat!”

Eriko snickered and popped her head over to give Shiori a kiss on her left cheek. Eriko was wearing an intense glob of crimson lipstick, so a slather of red goo was left behind on Shiori’s twitching face. As Shiori attempted to wipe away the infracting lipstick from her cheek much like a cat, Eriko turned her head to face outside the windshield and shifted the PRNDL to D, causing the car to jitter like multiple bugs below a chewed leaf. The car shifted away from the curb and began to jog down the road. We passed a varied amount of locales, some of which really captured Shiori’s attention since her face was squished up against the window. She nearly hopped out of her seat out of the car roof everytime we passed a maid cafe, drawing a sense of suspicion from Eriko.

“You seem really excited about those maid cafes…” Eriko whispered in a shattered tone. “I mean, anime and cosplay are cool and all… but…”

Shiori erupted into a blitzkrieg of anime fury and tears. “I do like anime, a lot actually!” She kept wagging her finger as if she was in a political debate. “I can’t believe you would be like this!”

Eriko snickered all throughout Shiori’s blazing rant. Lilth turned to me and simply gave me a bugged-eye stare which just screamed confusion and bafflement. I looked out my window so I could block the storm brewing in the front of the car. Outside was a long stretch of wall covered with an assortment of graffiti, some quite vulgar, such as a message to someone’s ex, and some soft-hearted, such as a basket of kittens with a seeking sense of vision. The world beyond the thin glass window was full of so many different things, that one word couldn’t describe it all. We live in a world with tragedy and death but also hope and acceptance. How some people can describe it all as hopeless or perfect is beyond my comprehension. The looming question was briefly interrupted when Lilth prodded at my shoulders.

“Nat, what should we actually do at the park?” Lilth inquired. “I think we should go to one of those yoga classes!”

I flung my head back. “Me, doing yoga?” A sharp breeze slit through my lips. “Yeah right.”

Lilth gasped and clasped her mouth with a bewildering set of eyes. “Don’t be like that Nat!” Lilth fiddled with a loose lock hanging near my ear. “You could do it, you just need confidence!”

I nearly rolled my eyes out of my socket before Eriko chimed in from the front. “Well, I think everyone can do whatever they want.”

Eriko’s voice triggered a surge of a buried memory of me wanting to ask Eriko and Shiori an important question. “Hey, Shiori…”

Shiori twisted her head backward like some sort of demented figure lost in the texts of time. “Yeah, Nat?”

“I was just wondering…” I pressed my fingers against my phantom chin. “How come I’ve never met Eriko before?”

Shiori gapped her mouth as Eriko seem to bottle up in embarrassment. “Well, Eriko moved to America when she was like, 18, with some dude.” Eriko attempted to shush Shiori, only to be met with fierce cat swipes. “She recently moved back in… for some reason…”

Eriko’s expression molded into a sneer, a sneer clearly targeted for someone close by. Shiori visibly tensed up in the sight of Eriko’s nerves flying loose. My mouth was tightly compressed at this point in order to not set off any more alarms inside Eriko’s head. Lilth turned to me with a pale, frozen face of fear and ducked under my shoulder right as Eriko exploded into a speech barrier of personal defense.

“I moved back in for a good reason, ok...” Eriko kept rattling in her seat. “I don’t need to tell you the reason though.”

Shiori’s face began to sneer an evil, wide sneer that calls for the answers it so desires. Shiori leaned into Eriko, prodding and assaulting the bugged-face driver with her stares piercing the barrier to a world not seen. Eriko fruitlessly attempted to push Shiori away much like a withered lady attempting to wrestle away a pit-bull. Shiori started to chant in a tribal fashion, “Tell me!” causing Eriko’s face to mold and flinch in the various directions reminiscent of a compass. I turned towards Lilth who also did the same thing since her embarrassed gaze was locked onto me. Eriko and Shiori bickered much like a pair of political rivals seated on the judging stage of a global world. 

“Shiori, you’re so pestering sometimes, I swear…” Eriko raised her palm in annoyance to Shiori’s blabbering face.

Shiori wasted no time firing back a shell fire of defensive remarks. “I’m your lil’ sis Eriko!” Her eyes seemingly tripled in size and sparkle a sparkling anime shine. “I deserve to know your deepest darkest secrets!”

Eriko burst into a fit of giggling since apparently, Shiori’s childish tangents were substantial payment for the cost of the war situated in the front of the car. “Shiori, if you wouldn’t tell me where you put your Absol plushie this morning, why should I tell you my “deep and dark” secrets?”

Shiori lost a bowl-full of hue in her face caused by the overdose of sheer logic applied by Eriko’s syringe of experience. In fact, Shiori looked like she had a stroke in the middle of a musical performance and was still trying to enjoy the music despite the sun’s core seemingly being lodged deep inside her temple. Eriko and Lilth snickered and chuckled in absorbent amounts once Shiori tucked herself into her seat of pouting. I couldn’t help but join the choir of laughs and wheezes.

Lilth winded down though as she glanced out her side window. “Hey, Nat, do you think we’re almost there?”

“Um Lilth, how am I supposed to know the answer to that question?” I said with snickering still flowing in my system.

“Well, I know you and unlike Shiori, you’re not currently pouting, so I just wanted to ask someone I liked.” Lilth blushed in a subtle tint, much like ice dropped into a jar of kool-aid.

“You...ok?” I waved my hand in front of Lilth’s stricken face, causing her to reflectively jerk back. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s ok Nat, I was just, you know, “fading” out.” Lilth laughed the dim exchange off despite her face being that of a principal with a student seated before them.

I let go of the conversations tainted with failed interactions and looked out my side window. There was an endless line of buildings and narrow alleyways, all filled with the busy men of Japan. We were going to one of those parks nuzzled deep into the heart of a major city’s hard interior. The smoke of the city’s transport hovered over the black wall of suits worn by the rich and overworked. Parks acted as a sense of relief and solitude in an otherwise grim and samey reality most city-goers knew all too well. Even us, the high-school students attempting to fit into the mold of the future, were overworked until we either screamed or dropped down dead. One thing I and many other students learned after a while is that for the sake of our families, we must not have a mouth in which to release a scream.

_It doesn’t matter if you must scream since none of us have mouths for which to release that scream._

Screams are a valid explanation of the human experience. Loud, bold, but disorienting. I want to say that this reality I must face every day is torture, that it’s suppressing my inner rainbows, but the reality is, our future have always been molded with the mouth excluded. For all of mankind, the mouth is a tool, a weapon that is abused time and time again. Wars have been started because of the mouth, because of the screams. But, at the same time, the human experience gained because of war is only present in the sea of screams present as the blood flows down the solemn battlefield. Millions have died because of our mouths, but we have also stepped many steps of achievement because of the use of our mouths. Despite its flaws, our mouths are something precious, something worth fighting for, which does mean I should be against this “rigid” society. But the reality is, despite my inner belief, and maybe this is caused by a sense of fear that comes with every expression, I don’t fight. I let my mouth be sewed because I’m fine with it, and that’s a scary feeling, knowing that you’re fine with erasing part of the human experience.

Sometimes the loudest thoughts come about in the presence of meaningless silence. I had to take a pause though because of, let’s play a brief guessing game. Surprisingly, the cause of my pause was not Shiori and was instead Eriko. Eriko started to converse with Shiori who was still pitted against her seat.

“So, Shiori, mom said you were out of tampons and that I need to buy some later.” Shiori flung up from her depression and waved frantically in an attempt to hush Eriko up. “What’s your problem Shiori?”

Shiori blushed feverishly, “Do we need to talk about that in the car…”

“We’re all girls here, no boys in this car, so there’s nothing to worry about,” Eriko assured Shiori who was still shaking dance of fear.

“I know that… but I still don’t like to talk about that around people since… it feels like someone who is unseen is watching… or reading this conversation.” Shiori took a deep breath.

“Shiori, that’s just silly, you know it's just me, you, and your two goofball friends.” Eriko paused to let Shiori absorb the sentiment laced in the air. “Also, mom told me you usually have your period at the beginning of the month, so…”

Shiori took a second to process the question Eriko was implying, and she nearly lit up when she came to that shocking revelation. “Oh!” Shiori glanced down at her skirt, “I haven’t had it yet, which is strange since I usually have it right at the start of the month.”

“So wait, is anything hurting down there, like, is something feeling off?” Eriko asked.

“No, I feel normal, like… normal…” Shiori stumbled since basic speech was not one of her strong suits. 

Shiori was the one that said, “I’m the most best student!” for years unironically.

“Strange, if anything feels funny, just tell me or mom,” Eriko said, ceasing the talk about periods that lasted for far too long.

The four of us sat rigid in an uneasy silence for a grand total of two minutes before Shiori blurted, lungs probably bleeding at this point from the sheer volume of her voice, “Hey Lilth and Nat, you guys wanna play Rock Paper Scissors?”

Lilth and I shrugged in a mellow tone which caused Shiori to spin around in a not-so-mellow twist. Shiori raised her clenched fist up awaiting Lilth and I’s hands to reciprocate. Lilth raised her hand up to the ceiling and I repeated the action with my admittedly smaller hand. The three of us shook up and down and foisted down our hand gesture needed for victory in this war of rocks, papers, and scissors. Shiori chose paper, I chose rock, and Lilth chose paper. Shiori lunged at my hand, pushing it out of the fight and leaving Shiori and Lilth to duke it out. Three jingles and a firm shake later, Shiori chooses rock and Lilth chooses paper again, defeating the overlord with the forbidden name of Shiori. Lilth basked in her luminous victory over the dark dust storm that was now flailing in her seat in a swirl of pouts and fury. 

Eriko cheered on the great warrior named Lilth before returning her steel glance onto the road leading to the park that had not been in our mind for quite a long while. Eriko’s steel was noticeably melted when her eyes bulged forward, looking for something not currently in my cone of vision. The car began to beep a beat of brakes being applied on the rubber smooth wheels. Eriko first glanced at Shiori, still weeping over the loss of her one precious rock lost in the War of the Hand-Gestures, and then at me and Lilth. 

“Hey you three, we’re about there.” Eriko looked back at the front window which oversaw the cafe hood. “Just don’t be stupid when we’re here.”

The car took a banked turn, allowing me to see a wide view of the tall trees reaching for the hidden stars cloaked by the blueberry sky. Leaves rained from the bright searing bush atop the grand barks of the park just waiting for the three of us to infiltrate. The car eased an eventually stopped, rattling the mermaid swinging on the rear-view mirror. Eriko unclipped her seatbelt and kicked the driver’s side door open, leaving the car. The sun shone brightly through the leaves and the foggy glass as I looked left to open up my door. With the sound of a seatbelt slapping against the puffed seat, I knew that the day was now only beginning for the three of us, the trio that was always destined to have fun on this day, August 21st, 2017.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's Chapter 2! I can only say it so many times before it seems like a robot telling blatant lies, but I might as well say it again.
> 
> I'll try to get chapters out at a reasonable pace.
> 
> No firm promises, no stress for me.
> 
> Remember, I am open to all criticism despite this being a side-hobby of mine. I've had a lot of fun writing these two chapters so far, and I would hope that you all enjoy reading these as well.
> 
> See you later with Chapter 3, and please, make the world a better place now that it's a new year.
> 
> New year, new opportunities.
> 
> Be good people.


	3. Park Fun!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The park lays wide open, ready to act as the stage to behold wholesome fun! Natsuki and Lilth will paint rocks, listen to rad music, and discuss their deepest feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terrible at managing release dates. I know that not that many people have read this, which is why I'm not gonna act like one of those grating rapper YouTubers who are all like "Sup my lovely homies, it's u boi Double T LSD," when they only have like, 5 subs lol. For anyone who has read this though, hope you enjoy! Hope my release schedule gets more consistent honestly, so for now, enjoy Chapter 3.

I shoved the car door open and slid out on my bumbling rear. After a gung-ho drop that to everyone else was only the size of a curb, but to me was the size of the pits dug by those most sinister when they visit the crashing beaches. I leaned against the flapping car door and pushed with the force of one thousand mice hidden somewhere deep in my body. The park rose in Thursday citrus sky, tall and beckoning. Lilth and Shiori passed me and started down the gravel path that groaned with every grave step. Eriko rounded the car and stopped next to me. She tilted her head down towards the ground and rose her hand, covering her mouth except for a gap pointed at my left ear.

“Hey, Natsuki,” Eriko whispered with the softness of wool. “Has Shiori found… a boyfriend yet?”

This invasive question nearly punched me to the ground before I managed to recover and form some sort of answer. “Why would you need to know that?”

Eriko glanced up, seemingly on the watch for Shiori, “I just want to know since… I would feel bad for anyone who dates her if I’m being honest.”

I couldn’t deny that I heavily sympathized with this admittedly slanderous statement. “Well… I get it, I guess…” I thought for a moment if Shiori had been seeing anyone, but nothing came to my mind, “I don’t think so, Eriko.”

Eriko let out a dull breathe before raising her head back up. With a smile as some sort of reward for answering her question, she too followed the dusty path towards the park center. After observing Eriko’s brown squat car one last time, I turned and began to jog down the gravel path. The dulled spikes of the city referred to by the title of “building” seemed to shrink as I progressed further into a new world where instead of black rain, it rained pink petals from the clouds made of leaves high above. The grass blades swept across the pebbles snugged in the cracks of the stretching path. I shuffled up to fit back into the small group who were still pacing down towards the park. We passed rainbow roses organized in a choir and a series of rocks bearded with moss that licked the sun rays fed to them. The sunbeams played with the branches attached to the great elderly trees watching all who entered the park. After a slight decline, the three of us finally met the heart of the park, a large field stretching from the southern horizon to the northern stars. Blades of grass danced in the streamy breeze that licked our bare skin. Patches of white and pink tulips crowded beneath the freckled bark wearing a wig comprised of dark green limes similar to the hue of a watermelon.

About a couple dozen feet away from us was a series of sheltered picnic tables stained with the cracks inflicted by time itself. Behind these tables was a series of sitting stones resting upon the hot earth that could heat any cooking pot if used as a source. The weaving sky cloaked the park in an embrace of freedom and preservation of the arts of nature. Birds chirped and fluttered in this open blue field that acted as a new world void of the chains and shackles of rules and law. Tilting my head back down after looking at the free sky let me catch the sight of Shiori waving at me before dashing away towards the choir of rocks. My body leaned forward to trail behind Shiori as she passed patches of pink tulips surrounded by an armada of bright grass blades. Shiori halted before a swerving picnic table far past its prime and slid in beneath the table top etched with scratches and cracks made by the silhouettes of lovers now thousands of miles away. I set myself down across from Shiori, causing the entire table to rumble a small bit before settling back to its original peaceful state. Shiori, seemingly sky-high on any substance more joyful than joy, slammed her hands on the tabletop and hoisted herself up to press her face closer to me.

“So, Nat, we need to decide what we’re gonna do!” Shiori shouted, causing a fleet of birds to flee from a nearby treetop. “So, what’s the plan?”

My lips smacked a crackle before I responded, “Well, shouldn’t we ask Eriko or Lilth also?” I turned to see them chatting in the silent distance.

Shiori dismissed me with a mighty wave of an arm before continuing her verbal interrogation, “I think we should climb a tree or…” Shiori slammed her hand at the signal of every _or_ , “we should do yoga or drawing or…”

The table crumbled like cookie crumbles underneath the various beatings that were given by Shiori. Shiori paused and looked up at me with shocked eyes. The bench attached to the table was still intact, allowing the two of us to get up and leave the scene of the table-cide that had just occurred. Shiori stammered as we returned to Lilth and Eriko, most likely trying to repeat the question was interrupted by the crumbling of a table crafted in the presence of men long dead, men who fathered our great grandparents. Eriko and Lilth ceased their conversation when they turned to face the two of us, dirty fugitives we were. No questions were exchanged as Eriko began to give the three of us a block of instructions.

“Ok, you three should know not to be stupid, I don’t really need to be specific on rules… I think,” Eriko paused and passed Lilth facing in the direction of a shady tree tucked behind a family of bushes. “I’ll be over here, see you three at like, 6 o’ clock.”

As Eriko walked away, Lilth began to fire off suggestions, not as fast as Shiori though obviously, “So, I think we should start with that yoga class right over there!”

Shiori cupped her hips and raised her finger up in protest, “But that’s boring Lilth!”

I gave Shiori a bugged out eye like she just grew a second head, “I thought you liked yoga?”

Shiori hung her arms to her sides, “Yeah, like five minutes ago, but the evolution of thought is something so fast, so abstract, that we as humans can’t harness it!”

“Yeah, a.k.a, you’re indecisive.” Lilth snapped. “Leave the philosophy to Nat.”

“Who says I do philosophy, Lilth?” I asked, fearful since I didn’t usually disclose my personal feelings to others.

Lilth didn’t respond verbally but instead gave me a glare. Her glare pierced my forehead, digging deep for jewels and even deeper for a quiet place tunneled in my subconscious. She saw past my foggy pink lens into my multicolor interior. Lilth’s damning stare was broken once Shiori turned around and stomped off away from our presence. 

“I’ll be climbing some trees if you mind Mrs. Smarty Lilth!” Shiori snarled before leaving me and Lilth behind to stand beneath the flaming sun.

Lilth’s hand gripped beside her ear in a build-up and release of confusion before she faced me to release her hidden mind, “Did I say something wrong, Nat?”

I shrugged which caused Lilth to toss her head into an embrace with her forearms. I swiftly began to pat her on the back, mutter my sympathies before I pulled her slumped face up to meet my eyes. 

“Lilth, let’s do something and have some fun!” I cheered, causing Lilth’s face to settle in a sleeping den of happiness. “So, what’s the plan?”

Lilth tugged at her chin for a brief second before a light bulb seemingly popped in her head, “We should paint some rocks over at the picnic tables! I think there’s a box of art supplies underneath one of the tables.”

I did notice the oddity of a box destined for the expression of man via a blank canvas being situated underneath a picnic table out of all places, but I decided, for the sake of Lilth and I, to let it go as if the thought in my mind was a Butterfree seeking its pink love over the citrus sunset. Lilth dragged me past the breezing weeds hugging the various settlements of flowers being crushed by the visitors to the park which comprised of children, parents, and teens. Once we passed the tattered picnic table crumbled by Shiori’s vigor, we halted before a table less swaying than before, but still comparable to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. What’s humorous is that for years, Shiori believed the tower was called the “Leaning Tower of Pizza,” all the way up until a Sophomore year. I sat onto a cracking bench whilst Lilth ducked and fished under the table for the box. After wrestling for about half a minute, Lilth rose back up and placed the stained plastic box on top of the table. She sat down and began to twist the top open, plastic squeaks and all. Once the lid flew off into a patch of green somewhere far, we instantly began to fish out brushes, filled containers, and cups void of water. Lilth launched into a campaign where she laid out the brushes and containers in an altar-like organization.

“Hey, Nat, I’ll get some rocks and you get some water in this cup,” Lilth said as she extended an empty lime cup towards me.

I nodded and snagged the cup before turning away and scanning the wide green field for any source of water. In the blurry distance laid a green pool capped with sweaty lily pads baking underneath the crisp sun. I started a trek towards the green pool pass four or five families resting on the grassy bed made by Mother Nature. I kneeled down towards the whistling water and scooped up a cup full of sparkling water laced with the green bits ripped off the various lily pads. My legs were about ready to quit full time once I returned to the table which now had a baker’s dozen of rocks, small and cracked, sitting atop. Lilth grinned at the sight of me placing the cup in the axis-center of the table. We both sat across from one another and picked up our respective brushes. With my free hand, I slid a rock closer and dipped the brush tip into the blue container. I waved the brush over towards the rock, dripping a storm of blue heavy rain atop the wooded landscape. My brush descended upon the gravely blank rock and began to lick the blue paint all over the dusting stone. The blue paint skidded on the hard surface, slithering down with the reflections of the one sun riding its back.

Once the diamond blue was fully applied to the stone, I dipped my brush into the water cup, letting the blue paint dance off the stringy brush down onto the floor. Lilth’s rock had turned from its grey hue into a tan, sand-like color. She was beginning to paint small, magenta flowers that wrapped around the bright stone with her drippy brush. I fanned my diamond-like stone, waiting for the coat to hardened a bit, before plunging my brush into a white container. With the hail of white snow underneath my paintbrush pattering the table, I etched it over to my stone and began to press deep, white circles onto the rock. Once the rock looked more like a saddened dalmatian, I added the graceful petals that reached across the surface of my makeshift canvas. With the flowers printed onto the smooth art piece, I again dipped the brush and let the water do a fandango towards the bottom of the cup. My brush ate up a glob of yellow paint and licked a sphere of a painted sun atop the stone’s tip. I laid my brush down in the cup to rest and observed my stone one last time. The stone was a dark blue, much like the color of an aging blueberry, with white flowers flying around the barren blue, and to cap it off was a yellow hat, a simple portrayal of the sun, tipped on the top of the rock. My hands no longer hovered over the finished stone in order to let the sun crisp the coat dry. Lilth’s stone also appeared to be completed, with its beach-like skin tone decorated by magenta flowers you would find alongside a nostalgic riverbank located in the depths of your memories. Our hands were a collage of blues, whites, and pinks exhibiting proof of our messy creative outburst. 

Rocks now drying, Lilth and I faced up towards the infinite sky where the whistling of birds flew across the cream clouds ever sleepy. Lilth supported her head on a lonely hand and grew a look of silence on her face. A look that would be more appropriate on a widow standing above a looming casket. I reached my hand out towards Lilth before she flinches back like my hand was infected by some sort of plague. The infinite sky that showed a space so close, yet so far, is a joyful, but also somber sight. Knowing that there’s so much up there that we won’t be able to see in our lifetimes shows how small we are, how we’re just specks of dust on a colorful fabric stretched across God’s living room. Mars, Saturn, Pluto, all that lie after that, are mockings of the human gift to discover and explore. When we see a place so big, so bright, so different, we form daring plans to break the barriers of time and distance just to make our dreams come true. These plans were initially formed just to get across some violent malicious river and could be formed in an hour or two, but now, the distance is no longer the length of two babies head to toe, it’s the distance of Earth, mighty and vast she is, doubled hundreds of times. It’s quite discouraging to know that I, Lilth, and so many more won’t be able to learn the secrets of those planetoids out of our reach. Space is a blessing, a sign of human progress across a spacial plane seemingly infinite. But it’s also a curse, taunting us with the swinging prospect of new discoveries and advancements above our very casket as all we can do is thrash and scream. The thought always resided in my mind. The thought that if we were made to be a civilization of invention and discovery, that whatever deity laid above or below, sinister or tame, made us this way, then why was there a cornucopia’s worth of advancement just taunting and laughing from above. My face would grow somber at this realization.

“Hey, Nat…” Lilth whispered, eyes not breaking its stranglehold on the sky, “Do you think we were put here for a reason, like, maybe because of someone… special?”

My eyes began to drip before I wiped away the tears, “Maybe… that’s the best answer I can give.” The clouds and birds looked so pretty from below like they were roses still bearing red after a great drought. “Maybe the sky and the stars and planets above don’t matter, and what does matter is… us and our loved ones.”

Lilth shut her eyes in a peaceful protest, “Definitely not us… but…” Her eyes shot open, “yeah, our loved ones… our loved one do matter.”

My mind worked overtime in a sweatshop-like manner in order to catch the subtle not-so-subtle implications in that phrase. I didn’t want to pursue the matter though because if I were to do that, to pressure Lilth about her hidden star-crossed lover, I would be attacking myself. I too had a star-crossed lover, one who I fear every day doesn’t love me back. They weren’t even in any of my classes, a clear sign of distant, unreciprocated love. They always passed me with their books of the dull industry just snickering, snickering as my dreams of a person that I could call claimed were dashed. Those dreams laid in an ocean of its own blood, gasping, waiting for me to pick up the pieces and piece together this disfigured humpy dumpy that acted more of a dumpy dump of sadness for my injured mind. There was no way of knowing where the arrow of love was going, or which direction the boat of a readied honeymoon was rowing along the river of broken dreams. Was it raining bricks, snowing arrows? Was a hurricane of shattered dreams a-blowing? With no light at the end of the tunnel, the danger of my mind falling into a pit of despair must be growing. Are the fires of Hell a-blowing, a-blowing insults ripped off the tongues of those opposed to my dreams? The reaper must be mowing its harmony of mental death. The boat of love kept on rowing towards the fall, rowing faster and faster, with no sign of slowing, no sign of recognizing my dreams that had been dashed and mauled by the wolves of this might makes right reality. A reality, that was my own.

I threw my hands across the face, shielding it from the daunting skies, the skies where the false angels swung a treat, taunting me to jump, jump to places dark and void. I felt Lilth’s grip on my shoulder and I cracked my hand shield open. My head tilted back down to face Lilth who leaned towards me. Lilth’s eyebrows were raised in concern and her mouth was crooked.

“Hey, Nat, you alright?” Lilth asked as she rubbed my shoulder.

I nodded and wiped away a wet spot pooling underneath my left eye. Lilth snickered before lunging at me in an embrace. Both of us started to snicker before Lilth released me.

“Guess we’re both emotional…” Lilth tugged at the tip of her head. “Nat, let’s go do something fun! I think we should… should…” Lilth gripped her chin and phased out into a bubble of thought.

I too covered my mind in a thought bubble in an attempt to formulate any new activities that Lilth and I could partake. I tossed the wilted ideas not on my interest list into the bin of forgetfulness. The ideas still standing after a battle royale of sorts comprised of yoga with those instructors near the corner of the park, walking past the trail of flowers snuggled behind two trees, and cloud-seeing. I left my bubble and observed Lilth who was still deep in her sea of thought, looking for the pearls mired underneath the trash and kelp of the sea. Lilth eventually left her bubble of thought and faced me after what felt like waiting for a performance to start when you’re seated with three punk children. We began to share ideas back and forth in a gift-giving session of sorts.

“Lilth, I vote for walking across that flower trail.” I proposed with a bubbly tone similar to an overcompensating school counselor.

“But, Nat, what about that yoga trainer?”

“I’m willing to do that… only after a walk through that beautiful flower trail.”

Our negotiations broke down, mangled machinery it was, and none of us seem to want to fix it. Our words kept chasing each other until something blared out, almost like a Godsend given the stifling situation. The crash of a drum rattled the clouds above as the notes from the strums of an electric guitar danced alongside the flying birds. A crowd started to materialize near an elevated platform three tables away from us. Lilth and I stood and began to navigate past the wall of people in order to catch a glimpse of what was happening. The music took a downward curve as the vocals of a man, no older than early to mid-20s, chimed in the air around us.

**“I’m breakable, unbreakable - I’m shakeable, unshakeable.”**

Ducking under the elbows of fanatic fans and narrowly avoiding a decapitation when some guy swung his arm like a warrior’s bronze sword, I reached an unbreakable wall of people waving their arms toward the unseen singer. Lilth came out from behind me and tapped my shoulder. Without any hesitation and right, as I turned my head, she lifted me far up on her shoulders to give me an ogre’s view of the stage. The timing was impeccable too because the guitarist who was standing near the signer, a man wearing a pitch black shirt with the symbol, “Seimei”, whitewashed onto the fabric, raised his hand up for a violent strum right as the singer paused. Breaking the wall of silence, the blast of notes flew past the singer as his red skin roared the song.

**“Now I’m turning to dust in a world that’s twisted. Don’t come searching when I go missing. Close your eyes or just try to look away…”**

The audience behind us cheered up an uproar that reached with seeking hands towards the singer. The lyrics speaking of a twisted world where the laws of reality bend under the weight of two species never meant to interact now interacting cried out to us all. The singer’s black hair thrashed up and down as the guitar strums shook the very Earth below us. Even Lilth, member of the geeky History Club at school, couldn’t defeat the urge to bounce in rhythm beneath me. With one last shout of the ghastly lyrics and the echo of the guitar fading into a distant memory, the riled performance came to an end. I tugged at Lilth’s shoulder as the crowd hollered and cheered and was released from Lilth’s toppling grab. Lilth’s face was that of an excited sentient cherry on Christmas morning as she skittered in a stationary position. People began to ricochet off my body as the crowd thinned, so I grabbed Lilth’s white-capped sleeve. I looked up at Lilth’s purple amethyst eyes with a child-like sparkle primed. Lilth seemed to take the hint and began to pull me out of the rapidly shrinking crowd.

After we escaped that tightening death-trap, we stopped in the secluded shadow of a puffy tree branch just behind the wooden stage. Lilth freakishly flinched her head around to check for any eavesdroppers before turning her attention to me. 

“So, that was cool, but now what should we do?” Lilth asked, shrugging profusely

“We were in the middle of discussing that actually before that band stole our attention…” I replied, with my mind attempting to fish out the forgotten ideas left behind by the band-craze.

“Well… there’s a zoo not too far from here. I think we should get Eriko and Shiori to come with us!” Lilth blushed brightly. “Let’s get Shiori first.”

Before I could piece in, Lilth spun around like a half-baked tornado and speed-walked secretary style across the field towards the trees Shiori was allegedly at. The whole back forth between the two was faded in my memory so I wasn’t in a position to confirm whether Shiori was near the bundle of trees. Lilth stopped dead-halt of two trees twisting out the ground and began to scan the area. My eyes caught no glimpse of the wild green teenager, that was until a chant pulled our heads upward.

“Asante sana Squash Banana, wewe nugu mimi hapana!” Shiori chanted with her legs crossed between two trembling branches.

Lilth tossed her wide eyes at me briefly before turning them back to Shiori. “Shiori, what are you doing?” A crinkled giggle cracked through her words of demand.

Shiori kept bouncing up and down, chanting the chant of the one and only, “Squash Banana.” Eventually, though, karma got her in a way so similar that it must’ve been first seen on the dangling vines of the internet or something of that sort. Right as Shiori got to “mimi,” the branch cracked off the large bark behind it, sending Shiori and her ill-timed chants down to the green below. Lilth, only after a slight leak of laughter, rushed to Shiori’s side to assist the tribal chanter in regaining her footing. I almost kept my hurricane of laughter locked inside my head, that was until Shiori’s head rose up with leaves, sticks, and a very disappointed glance on her face which was obscured by a wild green lock. My fit of laughter was soon joined by Lilth’s spouts of gasy wheezes, all as Shiori tucked in her head further and further into her body. Lilth wiped a joyful tear away from her pink face before clasping Shiori’s shoulders and hands right before yanking her up like a stubborn radish. Lilth dusted away the scraps off Shiori’s head before crossing her arms and breaking the new plan.

“So, Shiori, I think all four of us should go to the zoo just past the tree archway near that pond.” Lilth dropped, still short of breath after the unhealthy amount of wheezing.

Shiori pat down her green lock that was twisted on her scalp before answering, “Yeah, sure. What about Eriko though?”

Lilth turned and pointed to the trail where we initially entered the park. “That’s what we’re about to find out.”

“Well, that seems like a plan, so let’s get going,” I said, thrusting my hip to the side in a wrath of pure sass.

Shiori nodded vigorously, seemingly breaking her slump in the vicious shake, but Lilth blushed and nodded her head softly with the force of ten sheepish sheep. Shiori took off in a wild skip straight in a beeline for Eriko’s location with me, not even trying to reach her at this point, behind. Lilth strangely trailed behind me, slowing as I slowed, and speeding as I sped. Her blush and demeanor had been an ever-present force all day, and it was beginning to gnaw at me. Thoughts of a relatively normal friendship turning sour with the presence of the rose and ring being added into the brew consumed my mind. Lilth was a sweet girl who did honestly deserve someone, anyone, but this kind of beckoning was getting to me fast. The sun seemed to not be alone in the only thing watching me today since this feeling wasn’t just mutual with Lilth, it was mutual with every object and person I observed every since I stepped out my front door with my uncanny textbooks. This thought of my relationships being mutually destroyed by some coming storm acted as a stain, even as I tried to discard it in preparation for a conversation with Eriko. Despite being a good four or five feet away from Shiori when she stopped in front of Eriko, I could decipher every toungful word from Shiori’s yapper.

“Hey, Eriko! Lilth and Nat wanted to know if you would be willing to… um… oh right, go to the zoo with us!” Shiori blasted in under five seconds.

Once I got within less than a foot away from the two, I saw Eriko’s blank face slightly obscured by her pitch dark glasses. Her space-struck face neither happy or sad, understanding or confused, stared deep into Shiori’s juvenile battered speech. Eriko turned her glance towards me once I pressed up against her lil’ sis’ shoulders. The previously void expression cracked up into a grin of relief like I was an angelic parachuter dropping into a ripped up city. Eriko’s tone grew from a sad garden of one or two withered apple trees to a concentration of pure Eden surrounded by many tall and bright apple trees dropping apples that shimmered like gems. 

“Oh, hello Nat, Shiori is telling me you and Lilth are planning a trip to the zoo, is that true?” Eriko asked, disregarding the looks of taken offense from Shiori.

“Yes, we are, would you like to come?” I replied with my invitation inserted in.

“Well…” Eriko looked down at her lap where a book I hadn’t even noticed yet laid. “This book can wait, of course!”

Eriko clasped her book and rose up from where she sat. She twisted around to open up her black velvet purse with golden chains swimming along the zipper. She tossed her black-covered book into the depths of the hungry purse and sealed it before turning back to me. Crashing into my spotlight of thought like a crazed kool-aid man was a reminder of Lilth who must have still been lagging behind me. I turned to see her, thankfully, not far behind and wearing a face no longer reminiscent of crackled corpses in a dark place hidden for centuries. Lilth stepped up beside me and glanced at Eriko and me before letting loose her mouth.

“So, is Eriko coming?” Lilth asked, tilting her head at me like a cat confused on the physical properties of a cucumber.

“Yeah, she’s gonna come with us,” I reply, nodding a beat of reassurance.

Lilth glowed in response before spinning and pointing towards the curved outline of the archway baking underneath the sun. “So then, let’s go!”

Lilth began to walk towards the archway, stringing Eriko and a still disgruntled Shiori pass me. I kept close enough to Eriko, so close I could probably get shocked from a bolt of negative energy nesting inside Eriko, as she whirled past the flowers and trees. The poking limbs of the sharp branches reached with a handshake to the rising clouds far above the musical harmonies of the flock of birds riding the wind. The flowers lining our trail ahead consisted of white tulips and yellow dandelions, all supported by a sturdy green stem twisted into the dirt. Blurs of various technicolor shirts worn by children frolicking in the wavey greens. Grains of mineral-filled dirt grounded beneath my shoes as grass patches swerved to the sides in an attempt to avoid my trample. The feeling of towering over something made me feel like Goliath standing before the shivering David.

_Of course, that was, before David killed him._

The archway, which had previously been but a reflection riding down the sliding sun rays, now stood about two Lilths high, or four copies of me stacked in an unstable crinkling Tower of Babble. Lilth and Eriko smiled at the sight of the signaling archway before passing the threshold that separated the park from the zoo. Shiori was still tucked up in a solemn bundle when she crossed the archway. With one deep breathe and a vision of a bright afternoon for an already bright day. With three steps, the shadow of the arch flattened upon my head’s tip. Lilth, Eriko, and Shiori were already dozens of paces ahead of me, leaving the shadows to hug me in a sense of mandatory friendship. With one last push of determination, I shooed the shadows away like ravens and chased after my group. I passed a marching unit of waving trees hugged by interlooping bushes propped up by stern roots. The blurry image of friends faded to distance focused into a frame-perfect display of a series of friends walking beneath the sky that makes all of us seek for things undiscovered.

_It would be more perfect though if I was included in this frame._

I trailed behind the rear of friends that spiraled far above my limited grasp for a while until the echoing chortling of the birds began to grind at my ears. Thankfully, the chortling was stopped abruptly by a great crash that would make any hateful cat and mouse duo proud. Not-thankfully though was the fact that the crash was caused by me slamming into Shiori’s mannequin pause when she, alongside the other two, ceased movement faster than a bull made dead during a clash between beast and man. My baby-like bobblehead was yanked down by the force of my narrow torso crashing onto the ground. Despite the sharp pain pinning me down into a torturous lock-hold, it didn’t come close to a fraction of the guilt and embarrassment that flooded my tensed veins. Before tears of those children underneath the cone hat could pour out, a shadow, likely Eriko’s because of the pitch black circles pasted on the brown shadow’s face, rose above me. A brown hand reached out, attracting my quivered arm up into a firm push. I was flung back up into a standing position where the blurred brown shadow turned into a clear canvas showing Shiori with her lacing green locks grasping my hand. Shiori had a face riddled with fresh concern, a rarity given literally everything that had happened between her first steps into Aina’s Bakery to now standing inside a circle of trees that surrounded us. Shiori’s grey gaze was broken by Lilth’s voice.

“Are you ok, Nat?”

I nodded to Lilth who was trembled behind Shiori. Lilth’s demeanor softened as she faced to her left towards Eriko who’s glance was blurry, to say the least given her void mouth and covered eyes. Eriko turned her back to us and looked ahead towards something emitting a frolic of rainbow lights. My gaze curiously following, I came to see that the source was the zoo’s front sign flashing still-frames of multiple exotic animals just pass the zoo’s front wall. Lilth sped passed Eriko, pausing briefly next to Eriko to cup her hand before yanking her away. Shiori returned her gaze to me with a bright smile, not of chaotic good, but of a newly found neutral good. She pressed her hand forward, signaling a reciprocal action on behalf of me. I complied, holding her hand, where she turned around and began to gently push me along. After a few neutral steps, we jogged in a flurry of friendly giggles and laughs as the jungle beats sung by the zoo grew louder. Before Shiori and I halted though, I caught a longing glance from Lilth before she violently leaned her head away from my glance. Whatever thought had plagued Lilth back at the park still remained hung in the air. 

A familiar thought again consumed my mind as the four of us inched towards the front gates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! My favorite chapter is coming soon, so stick around for that! Hope the few of you reading enjoyed, I love writing in my free time. Have a nice day everyone!
> 
> -Dramadog15


	4. Animals!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Inside this wondrous land of exotic animals and culture, the three friends will learn to appreciate life in its natural habitat. Well, about as natural as you can get in the city. It’s like, 95% natural."
> 
>  
> 
> "Ok, is that all you needed me to say, Monika?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Reasonable release dates."
> 
> K, lmao to that. Gonna try to get 4,5, and 6 out semi close to one another, but this is me I'm talking about. Chapter 4 was pretty fun to write, a pain to proofread since I really boned it when it came to proper grammar. Hope you all enjoy Chapter 4, Animals!
> 
> More info at End Notes!

Above the flickering sign showcasing the numerous species inside the zoo was a clock tower born of brick. Bluebirds rolled past the grand black spike erupting out of the tower’s roof. The clock’s bigger hand reached for the number three whilst its little brother reached for the number 7. Thoughts of how to keep the group occupied from 3:45 to 11 o'clock circled through the veins wrapped around my brain like a present sitting under a Christmas tree. Eriko stepped up towards the glass wall with a mouse-hole cut out on the bottom to allow the ticket-booth worker to converse with those standing before her.

“Hello there, ma’am! What may I do for you?” the ticket-booth worker's voice pinged like a 90s computer on doped-up crack.

“I need…” Eriko swirled around and lipped out numbers. “Four tickets!”

The ticket-booth worker leaned away from the window and fumble out of sight. They rose back up with a handful of red tickets crunched beneath their enclosed fist.

“That will be four-thousand five-hundred yen, ma’am.” The ticket-booth worker's eyes directed themselves towards Eriko’s observant glance.

Eriko kicked up her purse with her knee and dug her hand deep into its guts, searching for her bundle of yen. The rattling of pill bottles and coins drowned out the drums beating past the ticket-booth worker. Eriko, eventually, yanked out a lone slip of yen plastered with the watching eye of Ichiyo Higuchi. She hands it in and is promptly given five Hideyo Noguchi bills in return. Eriko shoves the five brotherly bills inside her purse and turns to Shiori, Lilth, and me.

“So, I guess we’re ready to go,” Eriko said, leaning into us with the tickets sprouted out of her grip.

The three of us pulled out a ticket, clenching them in a deathly hold. Eriko turns to the gate where the ticket-booth worker is waving back. The gate stands wide open, inviting us into a new world of exotic beings tra… being observed in their close-enough natural habitats. The four of us pass the tiled wooden doors with chain door handles hanging low to the ground. The previously muffled drums let out a vivid roar as the beat jumped from air particle to air particle floating over the cobble path snaking through the zoo. To the left of the path stood erect a group of trimmed bushes molded into the curves of giraffes, lions, and elephants. With my head turned to the right, the creeping log cabin rivaling the size of fifty elephants, buzzed as people of all ages passed through its doors. Large banners tied to blackened poles framed multiple wild animals staring towards the skies with the word “nature”, inked over the clouds. A large sign held together by four logs stood just a dozen steps or so away from us, blurring the text like a defective camera lens. I pushed away from the group as they gawked at the castle-like cabin overlooking the insides of the breathing park. The glossy black text on the sign held my eye as I shuffled closer.

**WELCOME TO THE NATURE HAVEN!**

Below the shouting text was a map washed in at least a dozen contrasting colors. Lime green plains titled “Roaring Hills” clashed with the hot-red flames licking the base of “Volcanic Rockies.” We were currently standing in the heart of “Entre Plaza” which was mobbed by “Washing Blues” to the left, “Golden Grasses” to the right, “Roaring Hills upward, and the entrance trail snaking beneath. Light pitters against the stone-patterned path behind me guided my body into a 180° spin. Behind me, Shiori stood wider than a royal’s table heating underneath a golden chandelier. Shiori scuffled like a mouse high on euphoria right up against my personal space. She was so close that her heavy breath could fog up my eye lens.

“So, what animals should we see first?” Shiori yanked my shoulders forward towards her torso as she spun with strength. “I think we should see the elephants, or the tigers, or the giraffes, or the wolves, or th-”

I was squirming throughout the rapid-fire list, only spared once Eriko’s voice tore Shiori’s ramble apart. “Shiori, slow down, please. You’re giving me a headache again.” 

Shiori slouched in dramatic defeat, I still stapled to her grip, breath trapped in my throat. “You always say that Eriko!” She argued profusely with her body-language, lugging me around like a teddy bear. “I ask you a question, headache. I give you a present, headache. I ask if we can watch a movie, headache!”

Eriko rolled her eyes and pressed her forehead against her fingers before letting loose one more command, “Also, please let go of Natsuki. She’s turning blue.”

Shiori gasped before dropping me to the stone bricks. My breath lunged out of my mouth in a crazed exhale. After a few puffs inhaling, my crushed system bounced back to regularly scheduled breathing. Shiori whimpered over me like a puppy dog watching its owner stub their toe against the coffee table. I crunched forward, a sense of dizziness still rocking my head like a creaky chair stowed away in a grandmother’s basement. I twisted my sore body back on its twig-like legs. Shiori clenched her jaw with her two jittery hands as her eyes glimmered with white stars. She gulped as her mouth vibrated underneath her apologetic eyes.

“I’m so sorry Nat!” Shiori’s voice squealed, three pitches higher than usual. “I’m sooooo sorry Natti. I didn’t mean to drop you like that. I’m just soooooo clumsy, you know.”

I tried to halt Shiori’s incoming babble indicated by Shiori’s eyebrow raise and left-hand quiver. “Hey, Shiori, it’s o-”

“Iknowyou’refinebutIjustfeellikecrapsinceIalwaysdothisevenwhenyouaskmenottosoIthinkIwannanotdroppeoplenomoresinceitmakespeopleviewmeasabimbowhichIamsoit’snotreallyinsultingeventhoughwhatisinsultingiswhenpeoplecallmeabooblikeseriouslycallingsomeoneafterasackofmeatonso-” Shiori spouted before Eriko raised her hand up as if it were some sort of makeshift stop sign.

“Shiori, if you’re sorry, then please don’t. go. into. your. rambles!” Eriko shouted, clapping with sweat beads of emphasis on her lava-hot hands. 

Shiori let out one last faint whimper before Lilth stepped up to me. “So, while they’re “bonding,” what should we do? 

Thoughts squabbled in my mind for a brief second before I replied pointing towards the zoo map. “Well, this map over here shows a bunch of different exhibits.”

Lilth passed me and bent towards the sign, robotically scanning the dry-cracked text. Her fingers pinched the bottom tip of her chin, winding up and down as her mouth gaped like it was inviting the letters inside. She stretched back up, uniform fabric groaning as father gravity yanked it forwards and back. 

“Golden Grasses sounds good, I guess,” Lilth said, voice as quiet as a lamb. “That’s down the right path.”

Lilth’s eye trailed past the sign towards an opening snuggled between two pedestals propping up blackened statues of lions roaring at the sun. The path laid woven out between two large brushes shaped like animals native to scapes foreign. I turned to Lilth as she collected back her gaze and focused its aiming reticle on me.

“So, Golden Grasses it is?”

I nodded and grinned before Lilth cupped my hanging hand and pushed forwards towards the guiding path snaking around stone-crafted pedestals. The bush hugging the edges of the path wore dove-white roses on its puffed-up, dark green leaves. Petals flustered as the wind whined past the cracks and crevices narrowed by the brown stems wearing leafy green caps. The sun’s rays glistened like a million golden ingots arranged under an ancient altar. The light sneezing of the wind was interrupted by a stampede of footsteps roaring behind us. We turned our heads to face the source of the horde. A being so horrible, so willing to tear away the paths in a sanctifying reserve like this. The beast’s name sings the notes of chaos, chaos. It was Shiori, obviously, bolting like a jaguar to our current location. Her heels ground to a halt in the narrow crevices in between the grainy bricks holding firm beneath our beings. She rapidly inhaled and exhaled loose breaths before letting out a word.

“So, we’re going this way?” Shiori said, breaths interluding every melting word. 

“Yeah, we are, Shiori,” Lilth said, sass using her strung out sentences like a whip. “You done squabbling with Eriko?”

Shiori folded her arms and glanced up to the sun defiantly, skin-bearing red frustration. A steamy groan swirled out of her mouth.

“She’s so irritating though!” Shiori whined, pitch reaching absurd levels that would even render dogs deaf due to trauma. “I told her to go and get!”

Lilth dropped her face upon her hands, sighing a somber tune. Lilth didn’t have as much experience as me in regards to handling Shiori. For a long time, Shiori only had me as a friend. People’s patience just couldn’t handle her explosive behavior. Shiori only met Lilth about a year or two ago during a Study Hall period. Shiori always told me Lilth gave her a pencil when her one pencil snapped apart. Now though, Shiori stood fuming in front of Lilth looking like a defeated soldier surrounded by rubble. I formulated a plan of social rescue to prevent a wall from forming between Shiori and Lilth.

“Look, how about we just watch some animals.” I beamed, aiming the request towards both parties.

No budging.

“You two are such good friends, you’re gonna let it slip away because of a silly argument?” I tossed my hands up in vigor.

Lilth’s eyes grew two sizes in the span of two and a half seconds. Her baffled glaze aimed towards me. Her lips smacked and clearly showed an exaggerated, egasped “what?”

“Nat, what makes you think we’re gonna not be friends anymore?” Lilth said, tone and volume climbing in sternness. “You don’t need to butt into our conversations you know. I just expect a little more damn privacy when talking to my friend.”

I was thrown back from Lilth’s spike in anger. I turned to read Shiori’s opinion on the whole thing, but she was still pouting, cursing out Eriko underneath her wheezing breathe. Lilth’s arm quivered as its muscles tensed, rage flowing through her veins. She spun right around, facing the trail once more before shouting out one last spurt of fury.

“You know what, let’s just not be together right now.” I opened my mouth to release a plea before Lilth’s voice shot it down. “Don’t say anything. I just wish you would respect our privacy sometimes. Just…” Lilth’s volume and tone crashed in the valley of whispers. “I’ll be at Washing Blues…”

Lilth tilted her head down before beginning to trail down the path. I was still shaking from the verbal beatdown delivered by Lilth. Her voice and body were generally pacifist, wishing for peace and butterflies to rule the land. Thoughts of what possible raw nerve I strummed argued back and forth in my mind.

_Did she think I was calling her or Shiori stupid?_

_Was she just void of patience with Shiori and decided to let it out on me?_

_Was there an issue brewing ever since UNIQLO?_

“Nat, how about we just move on, do something fun?” Shiori sighed, excitement assimilated by the waving winds. “This path leads to Golden Grasses right?”

I nodded, eyes heavy from held in tears. Shiori shuffled next to me and clasped my hand. Instead of flinging me in six different directions within the course of twelve seconds, she gently nudged me along the path like a child. Her green locks hogged the sunlight as the trees parted around a corner. Crinkled leaves and twigs ground to tattered dust beneath us as we  
descended down the gently curving path. After a winding right, left, then another right, we spotted a large oval sign standing tall on a dusty pedestal flickering underneath the sun. In large, bold, ink-black text, the sign read,

**WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN GRASSES!**

Past the sign lied a circle comprised of soft grey and harsh black bricks interlaced with one another in a pallet pattern. Light brown bark held up golden brushes high above the bumbling black plaza. On each tree was stapled a unique mask made from painted wood depicting a native African animal. On one tree was a lion’s mask painted with red eyebrows and a golden brown mane shimmering underneath the still-in-Japan sun. Two trees to the right of the lion tree was a gazelle’s mask painted with long, out-reaching black horns and a purple violet nose plastered on its simmering brown and grey snout. The whistles of the wind beating against the light brushes on the path gave way for an aggressive drum beat that sent up dirt grains with every mighty thump of its drum. Crowds of people stormed past the trees, giving Shiori and me a slight, blurred glance of a black fence designed to look like ash scarred tree branches. Shiori let out a familiar squeal before turning to me in a hopping craze.

“Nat! Nat! We need to go over there like, right now!” Shiori spouted in a broken sequence of rhythm. “I’m going over there, Nat. Try to keep up!”

Shiori blasted from her standstill into a kinetic generating dash past the trees bearing masks towards the enclosure. After the dust from Shiori’s gravity-defying launch cleared, I threw one foot forward and began to gleefully march to the enclosure. A foot or two to my left stood a sturdy front-opened hut selling merchandise coins and clothing branded with lions and giraffes. These animals looked so natural, yet, so posed and unnatural at the same time. Something about their dolls-eye stare into a void off frame struck an odd feeling inside of me. Humans like to view nature as this perfect force in the world, a force of true beauty incarnate. The rolling hills reflected upon the skipping lakes green of vegetation sitting beneath the ever distant snow caps was an image ingrained in our brains. An image remembered whenever powerful men and women discussed the future of our planet. But we as a collective leave out the ugly part of nature. The swallowing muds, the scattered bones smeared in raw blood spiking underneath the hailing rains, all aspects never imagined. Nature is wonderful though, not because of this non-existent perfection, but instead because of its obvious shortcomings. For every great fall inside the frames of photos hung up is a marsh sinking the unwanted, ugly junk of the world away. Maybe we excuse the flaws in nature because we as people have a preconceived notion that we’re nature incarnate. Like nature, we create. Like nature, we destroy. Like nature, we make mistakes. Like nature, we’re constantly evolving. If we accepted the truth that nature isn’t this divine idea sent down by the Gods, we would also, in essence, be accepting the truth that we are flawed.

_Being flawed is the most common fear among humans in my opinion._

The dark, spiders, death itself is easily measured. But imperfection isn’t because the mere act of measuring something like this calls into question our whole being and our works of mental labor. Someday though, I believe we will accept this as we move on to a more exact world. A world of precise robots working not in the confines of emotion and flawed reasoning, but in the infinite world of pure, cold, critical thinking. What I pray doesn’t happen is that we as a species decide only those precise and perfect are worth our time. Despite a robot’s perfect reasoning and perfect precision, robots without a mind will never be perfect. Our flaws and shortcomings invent a sense of perfection we also can’t reach. If everyone was perfect, no one would be perfect. It’s easy still to think of the eventual goal of human society to be perfection, but if we truly set that as our goal, we’ll erase the possibility of one thing being perfect. Without flaws to push us, perfection acts as a golden dream across an infinite canyon. 

_That’s why, despite Shiori’s impulsiveness and Lilth’s timidness, I’ll always love them more than any robot._

The black fence stood atop a sudden drop down into a gloomy snot-green pool. The water rippled as a tractor-like moan rattled in the air. Sitting in a shifting tide of ripples was a hippo, shining like a video game character from a Gamecube title. The hippo’s blocky teeth looked like two grand concrete blocks strung around with slithering leaf snakes. Small landmasses comprised of stamp mud dotted the large lime pool. Across the whole was a collective sum of four hippos all resting atop the sloshing waters. Shiori bounced up and down so much so that the black fence began to swerve. 

“Nat, look at them! They’re so…” Shiori took a long, scholar-like, observation break. “They’re so… I don’t have a word, Nat…”

Shiori’s head dropped on her hands like a black-eyed cat. I turned my head to the hippos, wadding in the 7-inch deep pool. Their nostrils reached far from their head, much like a world-record breaking sub sandwich. Flaps of skin acted as a meat blanket for the shining skin plastered on the hippo’s planet-like torso. The leaves trapped inside their teeth crafted prisons shined with slobber that eventually poured into the mucus water below. After careful calculations with the information I had obtained from the hippo’s individual parts, I decided on an answer. I turned to Shiori whose eyes flared with a young flame.

“Shiori, I would say that hippo right there is... “ Shiori’s eyes shone with the intensity of two star crossed lovers kissing above the flames of the sun. “ugly, cute, and fabulous. Or if we want to condense it, Cufaugly.”

Shiori glanced at the hippo again. “Cufaugly… that’s a good word. Describes a lot of people in this world.”

“You better not be talking about me, Shiori!” I blurted, raising my hand as meager intimidation.

Shiori giggled and seized upon me, grabbing my baby-soft cheeks and pulling them. “Aw, cute wittle baby angrwey? Or is the wittle baby a hottie?” Shiori let go of me and stuck out her butt as if it were the size of Jupiter.

A giggle pierced through my bitter mouth. “Shiori, what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing much, besides having to hang out with you!”

Shiori clambered her body on top of me. I released a flurry of punches, all squeaking off Shiori’s body like little plastic hammers. Fits of giggling roped me and Shiori together as we nearly fell down to the ground during our minuscule brawl. Shiori attempted a forward assault with an armada of kisses which I retaliated by pressing back against her two slim tube-like arms. This brief war of stubborn pride and bloodlust was ceased suddenly by an utterance that reached Shiori and I’s waning ears.

“Um… I just need to tell you… since you’ve gotten a few… complaints…” A gaunt girl bearing the posture of a freshman’s shivering skeleton stood before us, clasping her hands up and tilting her head down like a sagging water balloon. “I need to tell you… that… you two can’t be this loud. I hope you… understand.”

My eyes and Shiori’s eyes slammed their glaze together before greeting the girl wearing the blue washed employee shirts Shiori’s mouth smacked in contorted shapes, lipping a whistling “sorry!” The girl’s lips quivered for a brief moment before she scuttled away, taking small rat steps. Shiori slid her hands away from my blockade and clutched them against her body. Her eyebrows bounced up towards her hanging front locks as she grew a weasel-like smile cheek to cheek. Her whole being was a physical paradox since she had the face of a confident weasel seated before a hunter, but also had the body of a squirming child dunked in a tub filled with black water. Our eyes sat void of motion for an eternally long minute before Shiori turned her head and opened her mouth.

“So, we saw a hippo. Should we go find another animal?” Shiori asked, in a mature manner reminiscent of a thirty-year-old mother.

I swerved my body around and gazed upon the open square. Two separate strips of black fencing lied close to an overhanging cave entrance glimmering with an artificial highlight on the top right of the great stone. One fence provided a blockade for a steep stone drop that sloped back up into a green mound while the other dropped off once again into a drenched pit of green water. I turned my sights back to the fence lying before the raising green mound and pulled at Shiori’s shirt.

“We should go to that one!” I squealed, twisting the fabrics on Shiori’s body.

I released my dug in hand from Shiori’s shirt right as she vibrated in place with an aura of toddler-like joy. I stepped away from the hippo enclosure and began down towards the green mound which was about thirty-five feet away. Shiori scampered behind me as we crossed over the dusty bricks. A black sign wrangling the sun’s ray spread across the top stood before the new enclosure reading, “Lion Den.” Seemingly on cue, a shattering roar sounded past our bodies, reaching as far as the parental rainbow floating above. A sunny mane stepped into view from behind the green mound, fur rustling in the wind. The great lion had a red-dusted orange body, bulged muscles wrapping down into its paws. Snugged into its mane was a feline face with black-dotted fur and a glimmering dark nose. Green grass tipped with yellow highlights eased beneath the lion’s firm-set front paw. Steaming air puffed out of its bulbed jaw held up by drilling teeth. Standing tall with a back flatter than a runway, the lion’s gaze descended upon the visitors standing beyond the fence. Shiori’s face glowed with a radiance rivaling a sun-borne king.

“Nat, it’s so vicious, yet adorable!” Shiori said, clasping her hand against my shoulder. “Just like you!”

I snickered before swatting off Shiori’s grip, “Shiori, you know we can’t fight again since we’re so loud.” 

Shiori turned back to the lion’s royal glare. “But seriously, Nat, aren’t lions just beautiful?”

My eyes bugged out a bit as I turned my focus on Shiori. Her bounciness settled into a rippled pond resting their weight upon the black fence. Shiori’s gentle face shot its firm attention on the lion whos dusty fur swerved against the wind. The light breeze acted as a soother of worries ghosting its way through the zoo. The breeze brisked my shoulders and nudged me down into the same position Shiori was in, leaned in towards the fence. Her eyes flickered for a moment before she began to let loose a platter of varied thoughts.

“Nat, I’m just wondering…” Shiori whispered tone softened like a ghost. “If a lion is so strong, how is it enclosed in a meager human-made enclosure.

“Well… maybe our inventions aren’t so “meager,” like you say…” I replied, easing out every word like a dedicated commissions artist.

“But, Nat, this world is so big, so vast…” Shiori shot off, “How could some hairless apes conquer a world like this so quickly?”

I paused for a moment, formulating an answer that would satisfy the hurdles that particular question propped up. “We’re more important than you think, Shiori. That’s why we all have the responsibility of caring for our world.”

“I guess…” Shiori’s eyes lagged down towards the ground, “It just feels a little egotistical to call ourselves “important,” like we’re some sort of tribe of godly giants.”

“We are giants though, giants with a lot of power that in turn, requires a bucket load of responsibility to manage.” I said, “There’s nothing wrong with admitting we have unmeasured power over the Earth. But, what is wrong is to say we aren’t currently abusing that power.”

Shiori’s sad gaze fell upon the lion, exiled king of the jungle. “Wow… managing to talk about our place in the world without bringing up Go-”

My hand fired off to slap cover on Shiori’s mouth before she said anymore. “Shiori, please, I don’t want to hear that controversial crap today.”

“I understand, we don’t need to make those reading this mad.”

My ears took a double take before prompting my mouth to ask for a repeat. “Wait, excuse me? Can you repeat that?”

“The whole thing about God?” Shiori said glance crumpled with confusion.

“No no, what you said after I interrupted you?” I plead, mind racing with assumptions.

Shiori stared at me as a smiley face had just burst out of my forehead. “I didn’t say anything?”

_Is she lying? I swore I heard something about someone “reading” this?_

_Am I going crazy?_

“Um… I think you just might have heard yourself… or something to that effect.” Shiori said, easing my conspiracy-like assumptions.

“Must have been losing it,” I said, pressing my confused hand against my disrupted brain, searching for any answers. “I think we’ve looked at this lion long enough honestly…”

“Yeah, maybe we should move on to the aquarium section o-” Shiori’s voice cut of like a severed power cord before she suddenly dashed out of view towards a wall made of human bricks. 

The crowd circled around an enclosure Shiori and I noticed earlier, one with a sudden drop into a murky pool. I muscled my way through the border wall of people until I reached yet another black fence with Shiori once again leaning on it. Her eyes were bulged down at the pool below, where a lurking beast left ripples following it as it swam. Its space-like eyes were glossy like they belonged to a suspicious child knocking on your front door furiously at three in the morning. A slip of sand beach stood in the corner of the enclosure, surrounded by the green sloshes of moss and meat chunks. The alligator ruptured the surface of the water with its cracked head as it barreled past the lily pads and reeds towards one target. A middle-aged man, wearing a tan get-up much like Steve Irwin, stood equipped with a stained bucket and a pokey steel rod. The man dragged a fish, white-eye, out of the bucket and prepped it like a baseball. The alligator slowed its barge and stared ominously at the still fish. The man took a minimal windup and tossed the fish underhanded at the long-snout predator bobbing in the water. All that had shown of the alligator up to this point was its stretched out snout and its two porcelain eyes. That facade was mauled and tattered though once a jawline reaching two or more feet spiked out of the water, opening a gurgling entrance circling into its throat.

The fish slid in without any chewing as the shimmering gator crashed back into the green water. Shiori stampeded on spot with a vigor boiling over her whole being. The gator’s beady stare shot off once again towards the man. The man shuffled back as the water crashed and wavered as the green scales of the gator broke the surface. Grey teeth plagued with pink chunks clutching on for dear life lined the gator’s enlarged jaw. The packed body of the gator rose to sight with drips of vine-green water pattering beneath. Fear bubbled up in my eyes as this creature bearing dark green scales stamped past the muddled water leading to the stranded man. Shiori chattered on her nails as the man took on a wide stance. He rose his large, stone-hard rod, in preparation for a superb frontal attack on the gator’s rear...

_Dammit, Natsuki, wording._

He lifted up his large steel pole in preparation to fend off the charging gator. The gator clamped onto the pole with snarls snaking up to the man’s determined face. The man shot forward, shooting the gigantic reptile away towards the shallow greens. The gator coiled back onto its feet before dashing back into the depths with shame. The audience watching from above roared with claps as the man so humbly picked up his bucket and slipped back through the door he came from. I turned to Shiori who had a wide, face-eclipsing grin and vibrating fists, the usual for her.

“That was so cool! I was actually worried for a moment that he would get gobbled, but instead, he whacked that gator!”

“Yeah, Shiori, I could see, I don’t need a play-by-play.”

Shiori blushed. “You know how it is, Nat…”

I stared right at her and grew a small smirk, “Now, we will walk away from the gator, past these people, whilst talking about something super radical and ka-” Shiori laughed and pushed her finger into my shoulder like a baby bear.

“You’re so mean sometimes, Nat! Come on, I wanna see some fish!” Shiori spun around on her heel, almost crashing to the stone below, before preparing a mad charge to the aquarium entrance past a tribal themed shop. After a silent, easeful three seconds, she fulls on anime-sprinted towards the aquarium, nearly stomping on many passers-by. I let out a humored, but exasperated sigh before stepping from brick to brick to what I feared to be Shiori’s crash site. Surely enough, at the wide blue glass panel containing two sliding doors, Shiori was standing with a hand on her forehead. I tried to cage my humor when I walked up to her, face coiled up with pain drizzling down to her eyes. 

“You ok, Shiori?”

“Ugh, hate glass panes sometimes…” Shiori gave a death-glare to the glass pane, clearly feeling nothing but contempt for this terrible, glassy foe.

I marched over and propped the door open. “Now that we’ve overcome this great obstacle, let’s just go in.”

Shiori scoffed before shambling past me into the blue-hued tunnel. The door squealed shut as the blue aura washed our skin free of any natural tones. Tank after tank of glistening blues lined the individual stones as the hall snaked left and right. Shiori scampered over to a tank and leaned in, eying the multicolored fish gently rolling against the still bright blue water. Her eye, in particular, was chained and entrapped by this one fish, small, chubby-eyed, with red and white barbershop-esque stripes running down from mouth to fin. Polaroid-colored grains gifted beneath the belly of the fish as it tore past the soaked mounts. Shiori leaned in further, squishing her face like goo against the glass, muffling her speech.

“Der’s a dan fiwsh in hwere Nat!! A fwishy!”

She retracted back, nearly stumbling on her left heel before catching herself with her leaning right. We continued down the mystical, but also samey-looking tunnel choked with tanks painted with a collection of bright fish. Except, for this one which caught my eye due to the color in relation to the crowd. One fish, past the teams of blue and redfish, one fish bobbed with a dark grey body and clear white-hued fins. Its eyes were completely black like ink was trying to squeeze out, and the thing barely moved. Something about its eyes seemed human, like a pupil hidden away was staring at me, spreading judgment and regret on my back like rain. My focus tightened as the grey speck amongst the sea of color-dragged itself forward, eyeballs shining as the blue lights above struck down.

“Nat, you have to see this!” Shiori called, breaking this mental vice-grip cutting the outside lights of the tunnel.

I turned my head to see her near a cylinder-shaped tank full of water dosed with darkness. I briefly turned back to the fish tank to get one last look at the foreboding fish, but to the further retractions of my foggy mind, the fish was gone, gone from every realm known to man. The exact spot where the fish had been was barren of life, just a sphere of isolated, desolate waters of memory. That feeling returned, that feeling like an event just beyond was being fizzled through the oxygen pumping my lungs and swimming through my blood. I had to assume mistaken sights as the cause of my discomfort, nothing else. I walked over to Shiori, whose face was, unsurprisingly, slapped like a pancake against the glass. Inside the boundless black was an octopus dragging its tentacles against the steel floor as its bulbous head held shackled in the still water. Its skin was cracked, rusty plates of its skin separated by black lines contrasted by its tomato-red hue. Its eyes were gems, shooting out reflections in this tank of desolate space.

“This octopus is so cool, like, seriousl-” Shiori stopped as if a brick bonked her on the head, which wouldn’t be the first time, and reeled back from the tank and held her stomach at the cue of a deepened grunt. I built up concern as she mouth brief expletives.

“Shiori, you alright?” I reached my hand towards her shoulder, only to be shooed away.

“I’m good, I’m good, just… need to find a bathroom…” Shiori’s head snapped around and glanced in 360 directions before spotting a bathroom two fish tanks and one jellyfish closure away.

She takes off in a jog, shoulders beating back and forth like a machine before audibly slamming the door marked with a pink fish open. I followed behind her stamps and stood before the now slammed shut door. I took three, maybe four, miniature steps towards the door in order to increase my volume and to draw whatever sounds sourced in the bathroom closer.

“Shiori, you gonna be alright?” I glanced to my side to see if there was anyone, only to be met with the same blue-hued walls lining this whole place.

“Just give me a minute…” Shiori sounded exasperated, like a certain egotistical YouTuber when they hear the damning word added with “ion.”

_Seriously, thank God he quit. Just hope someone gets the reference, or else I just made myself look like an ass._

_Hold on, what’s “someo-_

“Nat, is Shiori ok?” A quiet voice spooked me from behind. After an embarrassing hop and a twist, I realized the voice came from Lilth, seemingly materializing when she’s needed, like some play, or written story.

“Nat, are you ok?”

“Yeah, yeah. Shiori started to not feel well, I think…” I rubbed the exasperation from the hogging sacks beneath my eyes.

“Well, shoot…” Lilth glanced down. “Hey, Nat, I’m sorry for being kinda explosive, I know you didn’t mean anything…”

“Yeah, it’s alright, but now that Shiori is Miss. Green Bleh in there, what should we do?”

Lilth propped her chin with her slender fingers before something seemed to click inside of her. “Natsuki, I promised we would write together sometime in the not-so-distant future, and now is the not-so-distant future!”

I chuckled, “Lilth, you promised that, at what, Shiori’s 13th birthday near that crappy mall, I think it’s a bit more than the “not-so-distant” future.”

Lilth rolled her eyes and moved over to a table next to the bathroom doors. “Nat, it is time, let us relive the promise of sucky teenage girls so yonder gone in this cruel world!”

Out of her pockets, she drew out two notepads, one pink with black glitter and the other just plain old blue. I went over to sit across from her and collect the pink notepad cupped in her outstretched arm. She reached in her pocket yet again and retrieved two pens, rolling one towards me. 

As she once said just about ten seconds ago, it was time to relive the promises of sucky teenage girls so yonder gone in this cruel world!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Writing is something I enjoy, even if there isn't an audience. We're getting close to the point of this particular story that I'm really excited for! If you've read this, thanks so much for stopping by! :D
> 
> -Dramadog15


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